New York Program
Ghost Protists
Runtime: 4 minutes
Director: Sasha Waters
Producer: Sasha Waters
Country of Production: USA, UK
Year: 2024
Synopsis: A protist is an organism that is neither animal, vegetable, nor fungi. Plant-like protists are called algae—such as those “flowers of the sea” cyanotypes created by Anna Atkins and published in a landmark book in 1843. In a mesmerizing frenzy of images and text, Ghost Protists transforms her images into a protest of the historical erasure of the colonial violence that enabled their creation.
Suspensions, Infinite
Runtime: 11 minutes
Director: Patricia Silva
Producer: Patricia Silva
Country of Production: Portugal, USA
Year: 2019
Synopsis: “If you’re anywhere close to the cutting edge of tech, you might not be interested in geopolitics, but geopolitics is interested in you.” —Ken McCallum, director-general of Britain’s MI5 (2020–)
Through an arrangement of deprecated labor forms culled from Portuguese propaganda cinema, this film uses one hundred years of a family’s labor history to portray economic and geographic transitions. Between the fall of a dictatorship, the formation of the European Union, and the mass proliferation of high tech, our attention spans and online usage have created an invisible labor force for private tech companies—we are the invisible labor force.
“Can’t Beat the Rank and File!” The Future of Trade Unionism in Construction
Runtime: 13 minutes
Directors: Reel News, Blacklist Support Group
Producers: Reel News, Blacklist Support Group
Country of Production: England
Year: 2021
Synopsis: There are two approaches to trade unionism—a business-friendly partnership or rank-and-file militancy. In construction, there is an unbroken thread of rank-and-file action stretching back over 60 years.
It has won spectacular results—but of course the bosses hated it, as did a number of union officials who found their cozy business-friendly lives challenged.
This film puts the case for rejecting the business-friendly approach in favor of rank-and-file militancy and grassroots organization, looking at some of the great victories by the construction rank and file—from the 1972 building workers’ strike to the No2ESO! campaign in 2021.
“With the bosses, never. With the union officers, sometimes. With the rank and file, always.” —J. T. Murphy, trade union organizer 100 years ago
#PrecarityStory
Runtime: 25 minutes
Directors: Lorena Cervera and Isabel Seguí
Producers: Pepa Sastre and Fran Ruvira
Country of Production: UK, Spain
Year: 2020
Synopsis: #PrecarityStory tells the work story of Isabel, a cleaner, hourly-paid teacher, and researcher at the same British university. Her story stands as an example of the increasing casualization of university labor and its human consequences. Filmed during the 2018–2020 UK higher education strikes, this documentary exposes the little-known reality of precarious academic labor and fuels the ongoing public debate on the effects of neoliberal policies in British higher education.
على مرمى حجر (A Stone’s Throw)
Runtime: 40 minutes
Director: Razan Alsalah
Producer: Sharlene Bamboat
Country of Production: Palestine, Lebanon, Canada
Year: 2024
Synopsis: Amine, a Palestinian elder, is exiled twice—from land and labor, from Haifa to Beirut to a Gulf offshore oil platform. A Stone’s Throw rehearses a history of the Palestinian resistance when, in 1936, the oil laborers of Haifa blew up a BP pipeline.
The ‘Strangers’ Home
Runtime: 45 minutes
Director: Fotis Begklis
Producer: Thames Festival Trust, James King
Country of Production: UK
Year: 2024
Synopsis: “If you don’t tell your story, someone else will tell it for you.”
The past collides with the present in this invigorating retelling of the history of migration and the mixed families who lived in Royal Docks in East London between the 16th and mid-20th centuries.
The documentary focuses on how the media portrayed migrants and mixed families, fueling a moral panic during the 1930s. It depicts how the workers were welcomed to cover the needs of the British Empire during the First World War but were soon vilified and used as scapegoats by the government, the press, and locals for taking jobs, houses, and suppressing wages. This story is still being spun about immigrants today.
Belfast Program
Manifestoon
Runtime: 8 minutes
Director: Jesse Drew
Producer: Jesse Drew
Country of Production: USA
Year: 1995
Synopsis: Cartoon version of the Communist Manifesto.
Le case che eravamo (The Houses We Were)
Runtime: 18 minutes
Director: Arianna Lodeserto
Producer: Arianna Lodeserto
Country of Production: Italy
Year: 2018
Synopsis: Few walls surround us. Uncertain ground, immeasurable fissures. A multitude of archives within us. Among emperors and insolents, slum dwellers and speculators, women at war and grey cruel cities march to their own step in an archival, polyphonic, and entangled demonstration into the arms of the charitable Low-Income Housing Institute—or into its brimming absence.
Republic
Runtime: 12:19 minutes
Director: Rosie Reed Hillman
Producer: Rosie Reed Hillman
Country of Production: UK
Year: 2023
Synopsis: In Sheffield, three women across the city select a daily act of care to be filmed that represents their experience of motherhood. Their interactions offer a glimpse into the many repetitive, ordinary actions that comprise the labor of modern motherhood. Republic layers these snatched moments into an acutely observed, sensory world with an off-kilter tone, hinting at the interior thoughts and feelings of the mothers.
#PrecarityStory
Runtime: 25 minutes
Directors: Lorena Cervera and Isabel Seguí
Producers: Pepa Sastre and Fran Ruvira
Country of Production: UK, Spain
Year: 2020
Synopsis: #PrecarityStory tells the work story of Isabel, a cleaner, hourly-paid teacher, and researcher in the same British university. Her story stands as an example of the increasing casualization of university labor and its human consequences. Filmed during the 2018–2020 UK higher education strikes, this documentary exposes the reality of the academic precariat.
Studs Terkel Remembers the Haymarket Affair (Footage Shot for “Rocking the Boat”)
Runtime: 2 minutes
Directors: John de Graaf, Mirko Popadic, and Alan Harris Stein
Producers: John de Graaf, Mirko Popadic, and Alan Harris Stein
Country of Production: United States
Year: 2000
Synopsis: A brief clip in which legendary journalist Studs Terkel speaks about the Haymarket Affair: “You know why you’re working 8 hours a day? Because four guys in Chicago got hanged, FOR YOU!”
London Program
Segertåget (Victory Train)
Runtime: 27 minutes
Directors: Talat Bhat and Alex Veitch
Producers: Talat Bhat and Alex Veitch
Country of Production: Sweden
Year: 2025
Synopsis: On the purple trains that run through the rapeseed fields of Skåne, anger is growing. The train company is planning yet another cutback. But this time the train staff are ready to back each other!
This short documentary follows train drivers and conductors who, between work shifts and the online meetings of the pandemic, organize themselves in a fight for justice and better working conditions—a story of perseverance and solidarity.
Germany: National Public Sector Strike / Deutschland: Nationaler Streik im öffentlichen Sektor
Runtime: 13 minutes
Director: Reel News
Producer: Reel News
Country of Production: England, Germany
Year: 2025
Synopsis: While all eyes were on the German general election and the gains by the AfD, little was said about a huge national public sector strike. Workers in the Ver.di trade union fought for better pay and conditions, backed by a rising alliance of students and climate activists. This could be the start of a template showing how to stop the rise of the far-right everywhere.
Accompanied by other films by Reel News
Zagreb Program
Le case che eravamo (The Houses We Were)
Runtime: 18 minutes
Director: Arianna Lodeserto
Producer: Arianna Lodeserto
Country of Production: Italy
Year: 2018
Synopsis: Few walls surround us. Uncertain ground, immeasurable fissures. A multitude of archives within us. Among emperors and insolents, slum dwellers and speculators, women at war and grey cruel cities march to their own step in an archival, polyphonic, and entangled demonstration into the arms of the charitable Low-Income Housing Institute—or into its brimming absence.
على مرمى حجر (A Stone’s Throw)
Runtime: 40 minutes
Director: Razan Alsalah
Producer: Sharlene Bamboat
Country of Production: Palestine, Lebanon, Canada
Year: 2024
Synopsis: Amine, a Palestinian elder, is exiled twice—from land and labor, from Haifa to Beirut to a Gulf offshore oil platform. A Stone’s Throw rehearses a history of the Palestinian resistance when, in 1936, the oil laborers of Haifa blew up a BP pipeline.